SCANDINAVIAN SUMMER SCHOOL ON CONSTRAINT-BASED GRAMMAR
6 - 11 AUGUST 2001
at the Linguisitcs Department, Norwegian University of
Science and Technology, Trondheim,
The Linguistics Department, NTNU (Norwegian University of Science and
Technology, Trondheim), will offer a one week summer school in
Constraint-based grammars, primarily HPSG.
Topics include Syntax and Semantics in HPSG (and also Construction
Grammar), Statistical approaches to grammar, and Grammar Engineering.
Course descriptions are given below.
Lecturers are
Frederik Fouvry, Universit=E4t des Saarlandes.
Jean-Pierre Koenig, State University of New York, Buffalo,
Robert Levine, Ohio State University ,
Robert P. Malouf, University of Groningen,
Detmar Meurers, Ohio State University,
Stephan Oepen, YY Software and CSLI Stanford,
Carl Pollard, Ohio State University, and
Ivan A. Sag, Stanford University,
The school is sponsored by the Norwegian Research Council and the Language
Technology Programme of NorFA, and is open to all interested parties.
(Enrollment limits will be imposed only for the practical course on Grammar
engineering.)
There is no participation fee and housing reservations can be made through
the organizers
The summer school will take place after HPSG-2001 (Aug. 3-5, also in
Trondheim) and just before ESSLLI 2001 (Aug. 13-24, in Helsinki).
http://www.helsinki.fi/esslli/). It begins in the afternoon of Monday,
August 6, and ends in the early afternoon of Saturday, August 11.
Web address for the school (and also for HPSG-2001) is
http://www.ling.hf.ntnu.no/HPSG2001.
The summer school's location is the University Center at Dragvoll (in
beautiful, hilly surroundings at the outskirts of town, with a view of the
fjord, and direct access to hiking and biking trails).
Hotel rooms in Trondheim during the summer school are scarce, due to a
number of conferences and exhibitions in the area. Therefore, a bulk
reservation has been made at Trondheim Vandrerhjem (youth hostel
style). Reservations can be made through the organizers. In addition, a
few guesthouse facilities near the school site will be available.
More information: Lars Hellan and Torbj=F8rn Nordg=E5rd (organizers)
http://www.ling.hf.ntnu.no/HPSG2001
PRELIMINARY COURSE DESCRIPTIONS
Ivan Sag, Stanford University:
Core Clauses and Construction Theory
This course introduces a systematic syntactic and semantic analysis of key
English clausal constructions, including declaratives (indicatives,
subjunctives, and subjectless clauses) interrogatives (polars, wh-initial,
wh-in situ and sluices), exclamatives and imperatives. The approach that is
presented integrates Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar with key ideas
from Construction Grammar (specifically the version developed by Fillmore
and Kay and their colleagues) and Situation Semantics (in Barwise and Perry's
sense).
Literature:
Ginzburg, Jonathan, and Ivan Sag (2000) Interrogative Investigations. CSLI
Publications: Stanford
Carl Pollard, Ohio State University:
Higher-Order Grammar: a Constraint-Based and Type-Logical Foundation for
Linguistic Theory
Typed lambda calculi (Curry and Feys 1958) and their extensions known
as higher-order logics (Church 1940, Henkin 1950, Gallin 1975) are
widely employed in formal semantics. But as foundations for syntactic
theory, they appear to have found few advocates (Curry 1961, Moshier
1997). Based on a form of higher-order logic due to Lambek and Scott
(1986), this course develops a grammar framework that combines the
advantages of constraint-based and type-logical grammar. By way of
illustration, novel and extremely simple new analyses are provided for
(a) coordination of unlikes and (2) the distinction between lexical
ambiguity and neutralization (feature value syncretism).
Jean-Pierre Koenig, State University of New York, Buffalo:
Semantics and the Lexicon
This course discusses the organization of lexical knowledge,
focussing particularly on the organization of semantic
knowledge and its interface with syntax. Topics covered
will include: The hierarchical lexicon (both with type-underspecification
and lexical rules), constructional morphology, linking, the
argument/adjunct distinction,
and the structure of lexical semantic representations. The approach
that will be presented is cast within Head-driven Phrase-Structure
Grammar, but comparison with Constructional Approaches to argument
structure will also be covered, as well as some experimental data
on the use of argument structure in human sentence processing.
Literature:
Davis, Anthony and Jean-Pierre Koenig (2000) `Linking as constraints on
word classes in a hierarchical lexicon', Language. 76:56-91.
Koenig, Jean-Pierre (1999) Lexical Relations. CSLI publications:
Stanford.
Robert Malouf, University of Groningen:
Statistics for linguists
This course will offer a basic introduction to statistics for working HPSG
linguists. Topics to be covered include basic probability and information
theory, hypothesis testing, statistics for corpus analysis, and stochastic
attribute value grammars.
Stephan Oepen, YY Software and CSLI Stanford,
and Frederik Fouvry, Universit=E4t des Saarlandes
An Introduction to Practical Grammar Engineering using HPSG
The implementation of linguistically-based grammars for natural
languages draws on a combination of engineering skills, sound
grammatical theory, and software development techniques. This course
provides a hands-on introduction to the methods and tools needed for
building the precise, extensible grammars required both in research and
in applications.
Through a combination of lectures and in-class exercises, students will
investigate the implementation of constraints in morphology, syntax,
and semantics, working within the unification-based lexicalist
framework of Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar. Topics to be
addressed in the course include: the use of types and features,
multiple inheritance, lexical rules, and constructions. The daily
implementation exercises will be conducted in the freely-available
<a href=3D"www-csli.stanford.edu/~aac/lkb.html">LKB</a> grammar
development platform developed by Copestake et al, and will include
experience with adding and repairing lexical types, lexical entries,
lexical rules, phrase structure schemata, and compositional semantic
constraints.
While most of the course work will focus on small-ish grammars for
English, we expect to apply our jointly acquired grammar engineering
expertise to at least one other language towards the end of the week.
Course registration will be limited, since this will be a highly
interactive, hands-on course.
Background Reading
- Copestake, Ann: The (New) LKB System. Manuscript. CSLI Stanford,
Stanford, CA (2000). [see the LKB web site]
- Sag, Ivan and Wasow, Tom: Syntactic Theory. A Formal
Introduction. CSLI Publications, Stanford, CA (1999).
- Shieber, Stuart: An Introduction to Unification-Based Approaches to
Grammar. CSLI Publications, Stanford, CA (1986).
Robert Levine and Detmar Meurers, Ohio State University:
Locality of grammatical relations
A number of phenomena have been discussed in which traditionally local
properties of embedded constituents apparently have to be visible
outside of the local domain: case assignment (Meurers,
Przepiorkowski), tag questions (Flickinger & Bender), "tough"
complement structures (Levine), or relative clauses and complementizer
agreement (Hoehle). The idea of this course is to discuss these
constructions and investigate which properties of what kind of
constituents need to persist in which non-local domain.
Literature:
As general preparation, some understanding of the setup of HPSG and
the idea of locality of selection would be helpful. So people without
an HPSG background would profit from reading chapter 1, 3, and 7 of
Pollard and Sag (1994). The two issues which caused us to look closer
at cases where locality seems to be violated are also available:
Robert Levine: 'Tough' complementation and the extraclausal
propagation of argument descriptions. In Dan Flickinger and Andreas
Kathol: On-line proceedings of the 7th International Conference on
Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar. Available from
http://cslipublications.stanford.edu/HPSG/HPSG00/hpsg00-toc.html
Detmar Meurers: Raising Spirits (and assigning them case). Groninger
Arbeiten zur Germanistischen Linguistik (GAGL), Nr. 43.
Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, German Department. Available from
http://ling.osu.edu/~dm/papers/gagl-raising-spirits.html

NEW POST-GRADUATE PROGRAMMES IN PHONOLOGY AND SYNTAX AT UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON
The department of Phonetics & Linguistics at UCL is currently
preparing the launch of two Advanced MA programmes in
Linguistics, specializing in Phonology and Syntax,
respectively. These MAs allows the interested student to try
out research-oriented further study in Linguistics before
making the more extended commitment required of a PhD
programme. They will be offered alongside the existing MA in
Linguistics. The new programmes are scheduled to begin in
September 2002 (conditional upon approval by UCL).
The advanced MA programmes are aimed at applicants who
already have a BA in Linguistics or similar degree and who
are looking for a course specially designed to prepare them
for PhD research in their chosen field of study. Applicants
with little background in Linguistics should apply for the
existing MA in Linguistics degree programme.
Both the teaching and assessment of the advanced MAs will be
strongly research-oriented. The teaching will reflect cutting
edge developments, with students receiving extensive training
in both research methods and the scholarly presentation of
ideas.
The core of each advanced MA programme consists of four
courses in the chosen specialization (syntax or phonology),
a research seminar in the relevant area and an additional
option, chosen by the student in consultation with their
advisor. In addition, since phenomena in one area can often
only be understood in a larger linguistic context, students
specializing in syntax must take one course each in phonology
and pragmatics/semantics, while students specializing in
phonology must take one course each in syntax and
pragmatics/semantics.
For details about our department and staff visit
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk
For further details about the new programmes and to register
your interest visit
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/educ/advancedma/
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Dr Hans van de Koot
Dept of Phonetics and Linguistics, UCL
Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, UK
Tel 020 7679 3165
Fax 020 7383 4108
URL http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/hans/